116 THEOU&H THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



women to take their place. Their chiefs seemed to have 

 no power save over their own families, and their con- 

 jurers were supported by voluntary contributions of provi- 

 sions. These are some of the chief characteristics FrailMin 

 notes of the Indians who frequented Fort Chipewyan, at 

 which point he spent several months. One extraordinary 

 circumstance, however, remains to be mentioned. It is that 

 of a young Chipewyan who lost his wife in her first preg- 

 nancy. He applied the child to his left breast, from which 

 a flow of milk took place. " The breast," he adds, " became 

 of an unusual size." Here he and Back, afterwards 

 Admiral Back, were joined by Dr. Kichardson and Mr. 

 Hood, who had come from Cumberland House by the diffi- 

 cult Churchill Kiver route, and on July 18th, at noon, the 

 whole party left the fort on their tragic expedition, the 

 party, aside from those named, consisting of John Hepburn, 

 seaman, an interpreter and fifteen voyageurs, including, 

 unfortunately, an Iroquois Indian, called Michel Teroa- 

 hante. At two p.m. they entered Great Slave River, here 

 three-quarters of a mile wide, and, passing Ked Deer Islands 

 and Dog Kiver, encountered the rapids, overcome by seven 

 or eight portages, from the Casette to the Portage of the 

 Drowned, all varying in len^h from seventy to eight 

 hundred yards. 



On the 21st they landed at the mouth of Salt River to 

 lay in a supply of salt for their journey, the deposits lying 

 twenty-two miles up by stream. These natural pans, or salt 

 plains, he describes — and the description answers for to-day 

 — as " bounded on the north and west by a ridge between 

 six and seven hundred feet high. Several salt springs issue 

 at its foot, and spread over the plain, which is of tenacious 

 clay, and, evaporating in summer, crystallize in the form 

 of cubes. The poisson inconnu, a species of salmon which 

 ascends from the Arctic Ocean, is not found, he says, above 

 this stream. A few miles below it, however, a buffalo 

 plunged into the river before them, which they killed, and 

 those animals still frequent the region. 



i 



